Marseille hit with fine after Gerrard incident
Steven Gerrard was hit in the chest with a cigarette lighter thrown by a Marseille fan
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Friday, 12, Dec 2008 08:49
Marseille have been fined £8,936 after their fans hurled missiles at Steven Gerrard in their Champions League game with Liverpool.
The French giants were fined after a Uefa disclinary hearing in Nyon, Switzerland.
Gerrard was waiting to take a corner in Liverpool's 1-0 win last month when he was struck by a cigarette lighter. The Reds skipper was praised for not reacting to the fans' behaviour.
It followed a similar incident when the two teams met in September, which resulted in a £12,644 fine for Marseille.
Eric Gerets' side were charged with failing to control their fans after missiles were thrown from the stands in the match at the Velodrome, which Liverpool won 2-1.
Reds boss Rafael Benitez said he is pleased that Uefa has acted.
"The problem is that it is just one person out of thousands who decides to do something like that, so how can you control it? It is not easy to stop these things," the Spaniard said.
"It is difficult to control everyone, if someone wants to do something like this then it is hard to stop.
"You can fine the club and look for solutions afterwards, but you cannot control everything."
Uefa also fined three other clubs for crowd violence in European matches. Feyenoord (£19,702) and Deportivo de La Coruna (£3, 902) were fined after fans brawled and threw objects in their Uefa Cup group game last month.
And Roma was ordered to pay £15,761 after its supporters lit flares and blocked public passageways during the Champions League win over Chelsea.